188 THE PROGRESS OF AERONAUTICS. 



Let us add that a mutual enjoyment and a durable friendship almost 

 invariably spring- from such encounters. I do notdou])t that the pres- 

 ent congress will bring a rich harvest of these excellent fruits. 



Let us now glance rapidly at the most important items of progress 

 in aeronautics since the last congress held its meeting in Paris in 1889. 

 The progress has been great in all directions. New and highly impor- 

 tant subjects of study have been opened up, so that this review will 

 necessarily be extremely incomplete, and T must beg our colleagues to 

 pardon me some omissions which circumstances force me to make, as 

 well as some references that will be far more summary than I would 

 like to have them. 



The siege of Paris in ISTO attracted renewed attention to the employ- 

 ment of balloons and of carrier pigeons in war, matters which had been 

 laid aside in France since the First Empire. America had ])een about 

 the only power which before ISTU had considered military aerostation. 



The Government of the Republic soon seriously took up the creation 

 of special militar}" services in aerostation and in peristerophily ("co- 

 lombophilie"'). For this purpose the line central institution of Chalais 

 was founded and organized, and rapidly got sA'stematically to work. 

 The duty of this institution is not merely to prepare the instruments 

 and to instruct the persons which are to ])e employed for the aero- 

 nautic service of our armies and militar}^ stations, l)ut, further, to 

 investigate all the improvements of which those engines and services 

 are susceptible, and even to undertake studies which promise to con- 

 duct to new inventions and discoveries in the field of aerial navigation. 



The majority of the other nations of the Continent very soon fol- 

 lowed the example set by France in this respect, and indeed it must 

 be admitted that several of them improved upon their model, either in 

 regard to the material or in that of the mode of using it. To-day 

 these services have acquired great importance in those nations. It 

 even happens in Germany and Russia that the aeronautic service of 

 war often comes to the aid of civil aerostation by lending balloons for 

 experiments of scientific interest. Aerostation and aeronautics Avill 

 therefoi'e have no insignificant part in future wai"s. But alread}' the 

 war of the re])ellion in America and, quite recently, that of the Trans- 

 vaal have shown us to what advantages skillful generals can turn a 

 well-conducted aerostatic service. Indeed, if we reflect upon the cease- 

 less increments in the numbers of armies, in the range of the arms, 

 whether of artillery or of infantry, we shall readilv foresee a corre- 

 sponding enlargement of the theaters of war, and this, in its turn, 

 will render indispensable both l)alloon reconnoissances and also more 

 and more powerful optical instruments; nor must we forget the impor- 

 tant service of the balloon in directing the tire of artillery. 



Nevertheless, great as has ])een the progress wliich the services of 

 military reconnoissances l)y aerostation have accomplished in the hands 



